Trauma
by Adventuresomely
Summary: The nightmares of what I lost will never end.


Your words can sting so much harder than a bee, try as I might to cast aside your mockery. And your god forsaken malicious laugh and pretentious sneer drive me insane, too.

This game to you – let's tease the runt until he drives himself into the endless abyss of insanity – you have so much fun with it, don't you? All of you, disregard me, disregard what's happened, and disregard the fact that you've let yourself fall to the twisted and demented nature of humanity. There's bone chilling stories to be told of that night, and while I lay in bed sobbing, twisting and turning with night terrors and images that flash across my vision, you all laugh and mock me for my illness.

They all say, "As long as it doesn't happen to me, why should I care?" in their uppity way.

They're happy in their insanity – a worse insanity than I've fallen to; the illusion of happiness in a hopeless and broken land. Yes, they've all been saved, but their sin will never be washed away and my broken mind will never be fixed. Like biting into the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, you can't erase the knowledge of life and concepts learned when our innocence is lost. We've all been marked in ways that are painful, but they've all been turned into cruel, heartless monsters with the knowledge they gleaned from the source of Evil who ravaged my home.

And even after the world was saved and the lands were restored, that evil had entered their hearts. They forgot what was important, they forgot who had saved them, and they forgot themselves. My tears come and go; the others look down on me, pointing fingers and calling me a crybaby who can't do anything right because I don't hold back my true self. I stopped caring – about them, about myself, about the world. Those words still sting when I hear them, though, when I hear the voices singing about what a horrible kid I am. The tears fill my eyes and I rock myself back and forth with my arms coiled around my knees.

Mommy, Mommy…. Claus, too… I can hear them and they're singing to me that song I hate. That stupid lullaby, that one that always makes me cry, the one that dad refuses to sing, it keeps getting louder and louder in my head and I plug my ears to try and make it stop. No matter what I do, I always hear it echoing through my head, and just when I thought I couldn't bare it anymore, it ceases. It ceases to a familiar movement – the ground is shaking, the trees are falling in line with the movement and all I can see is that spot. That's it, that's where it happened before, I try to run away but when I look down, my hands and feet are being restrained by vines.

There's a roar in the distance and I start to cry.

Mommy, mommy… She comes out of the darkness and onto the path – the path we were taking home. The roar comes again and I thrash against my restraints. The vines have thorns, so the more I thrash, the more I cut myself open. Blood and tears dripping onto the ground– I'm cutting myself open all over and I can't stop. It's coming, it's coming… I can't stop it from coming.

I try to scream for her to leave, but I can't make a single sound. The ground shakes more and I squeeze my eyes shut. I hear her scream. Mommy… She's dead. I know she's dead. It always happens; it always, always happens. When I open my eyes again I see her covered in blood and maggots with that drago fang protruding from her chest.

I break down and sob, squeezing my eyes shut again.

"It's okay Lucas, she never loved you anyway."

My eyes shoot open at that voice – the voice of the boy who'd gone missing for three years. The voice of the one who'd been tortured and tormented worse than me, forced to kill, turned into a machine without emotions or a heart. Brother… My brother… Dear Claus. The one who I resembled most, the one I cared for most, the one that I was simply one with.

Face to face I came with him, and he's smiling so maliciously I whimper in fear. It's just like on Tane-Tane Island – He's mocking me, taunting me, picking at what's hurt me most and left me most wounded. Claus must hate me, because I hadn't been able to save him, either. I couldn't save him just like I couldn't save mommy.

"Mommy always loved me more! I'm the strong one, not you! You should've died; you should've been in my place! Brother… Why don't you love me? Why didn't you take my place?"

He hits me. He hits me again and again until my face is disfigured and I'm bleeding all over. I can't fight back – I'm still restrained by the vines. When he's finished he raises his sword – I never saw it until just then – and lightning shoots at me. I expect to die – I want to die. Everything's so painful, everything hurts so much, and I just want it all to end. But the impact never comes. The impact never comes and I hear Claus scream in pain. Now he's lying on the ground, barely breathing and bleeding all over. He's crying, too, and I can't handle seeing those tears in his eyes.

"Why…Didn't you… Save me…?"

His voice is weak, he's dying and I can't stop it. I can't stop anything because everything has always been out of my control no matter what I tried to do. The vines finally fade away and so does Claus. In his place there's a knife – a knife with the emblem of a dragon on it. I scurry over to it – I need to end myself, I need to end this pain, this torment, my life. I pick up the knife and I stab it into myself over and over again – into my chest, my stomach, my face. I gouge out my eyes and collapse to the ground, bleeding to death and blind. Blind… I'd never have to see them again. I'd never have to see those horrors again!

Laughter erupts from my throat as I bleed to death on the ground. From my blood springs sunflowers – I can't see them, but I know they're there by some strange sense or another. Sunflowers cover my body and devour me in the most blissful way I could ever imagine. I'm finally free – oh I'm finally free of this life at long last!

That was what I wished. When I awoke, my pillow was drenched with tears and my head was pounding with a migraine. A night terror… PTSD had brought it on again. It was always the same dream that happened too often… After everything that had happened before, I had been left not right in the head. Thoughts and ideas filled my mind, accompanied with visions and sensations that left me weakened and unable to act.

I didn't sleep again for the rest of that night and simply sobbed into my pillow until my tears ran dry.

I would pick myself up when the new day had come.


End file.
